the girl at the end of the rainbow
by of self
Summary: He's finally found what he's been looking for all along. Max/Harper. Slight Justin/Alex. Future fic. Sort of.


This is my newest ship. I never even thought about the possibilities until I read Sweetwater Gal's the **JUST IN CASE FILES: Fangs For The Memories**. I suggest you go read that because that story is kickass. Her Max is pretty much the epitome of awesome. It introduced me to the wonderful world of Max/Harper and ever since then I have been obsessed about trying to write them. My Max also draws from her awesome Max, so I owe my inspiration to her. Thanks. :)

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**the girl at the end of the rainbow.**

/

Do seventeen and disillusionment go together, he wonders idly as he blows puffs of smoke into the air and watches as they turn into wisps and disappear.

He flicks away the ashes on his faded shirt and decides that yes, growing up and disillusionment _do_ go hand in hand.

He's seventeen and he's watching his own family fall apart as they desperately hold on to whatever they have. But all they have is scraps and scraps don't come together as neatly as other things. His dad is going gray and his mom has lines that were never there before. Alex and Justin are jumpy and nervous all the time and he's watching like he doesn't care.

But he wishes he does.

He wants to be the Max that he once was, cheerful and unconcerned and happy with the smallest of things.

Now he's just disinterested and detached and he's still searching for something he cant find because he still doesn't know what it is.

/

He hates that one vacation. It's been three years and they are still reeling from its after effects.

Because only after it everything unraveled and frankly speaking, he'd like to have been a little more blind to everything around him. But that vacation changed everything and everyone left a little bit of themselves behind, something a little too personal to bring back. In the process it also tore his eyes wide open.

He has a fair idea of what Justin and Alex left behind.

Sometimes, he pities them. What they have is wrong but it also seems like something terrible and beautiful, something that is bigger than the both of them.

They'll never be able to walk in public and hold hands. They'll never be free of guilt and they'll never be able to live like before where everything was under the surface, tightly compressed. They'll always be filled with need and longing and _want_—for each other and they'll try to move on but they will never really accomplish it.

They're fucked.

He see's his parents now and he wants his Dad to joke lamely like before and rant and rave. He doesn't like the man he sees now, quiet and weighed down. His misses his Mom's smile and the way she coddled him because now she doesn't care. It's all too mechanical.

They're falling apart and he gave up too.

/

The bell at the door tinkles and he looks up to see a girl peeking in. it's Harper, tentative and scared. He doesn't get up but just sits and stares as she walks in, a little self-conscious and nervous. She's still the same, red hair, a smile in place and dressed in her rainbow socks and sunflower shirt with blue jeans. She grew up and became a woman but all the same, she's still somewhat like an innocent child.

"Hi Max," she says spotting him and walking towards him. He nods lazily in greeting.

"Still dressing for pre-school are we?" he asks smoothly and really, she shouldn't be so happy and cheerful. It's vindictive and malicious on his part but he doesn't give a fuck right? So why bother when her eyes cloud with hurt and he wants to bite his lips till they bleed.

"Sucking on a cigarette doesn't automatically make you an adult." There's hurt but there's also bite and sass and in all fairness, he was a dick so he deserves it.

"Acknowledged." He maybe be fucked up and lost but it never meant that he'd lose his sense of fairness. It just doesn't come up very often and prefers to lay low. After all, it's nice to see people squirm when they are being oh so fake and nice. Fucking assholes.

"So what do you want?" he asks bluntly, but not rudely. Harper is Harper. She was a constant fixture in his life, being friends with Alex and obsessing over Justin but she was there all the same, a cheerful happy figure until the vacation happened and fucked everything up.

Then Alex pushed her away. And to give her due credit, Harper did try to come back, make an effort to be with Alex, be the nice friend she had always been. But Alex was so steeped in guilt, she couldn't bring herself to face anyone, not even herself. She hates mirrors now. They always show what she has become and what she hates, and that is something she can't bear to see.

"You." She says simply and excuse him, but he chokes on the cigarette smoke he's inhaling. Harper wants him? He doesn't mind because honestly, he did nurse a crush on her but he's just the younger brother of her best friend and she was always hung up on Justin so he kind of suppressed it. Seeing her now, did bring it all back because there's something that time does to people. It made Harper beautiful. It didn't take her kookiness away but it did make her beautiful. He just never expected her to come right out and say it. Harper blushes as soon as she realizes the implication of her words. She hurriedly gives an explanation.

"I mean not that way. I mean the way that I came to see you. Not for what that implied. I came to see you because, I wanted too." She realizes that this doesn't make anything easier. Max is done choking and now he's amused by the pretty blush that's tinting her cheeks. He's also a little sad but never mind that. He has too much experience with hopes and dreams that will never come to fruition.

"I came to see you as a friend," she says, much more calmer than before. Only the blush on her cheeks betrays the heightened sense of embarrassment that she's feeling. This is the Harper that he knew. Or at least a trace of her. It feels good in a way, seeing her like this because it brings back memories.

Nice ones.

Memories of the way things used to be.

But it's also a reminder of how fucked up things are.

And once more, how much Max wishes he were blind.

Fucking blind and naïve.

/

" As a friend?" he pauses, laying delicate emphasis on the word friend. Maybe being a dick is just an ingrained reflex, which is exhibiting itself very much now.

She nods uncertainly he and he wonders if he should mess with her feelings. After all, her family did plenty of that. Alex also did that and some unknown demon sitting on his shoulder also spurs him on. Why now? Where was she when he needed her? Where was she when Alex and Justin shut him out of their little group? Wait, he'd never really been a part of that group. Where was she when he needed someone, a friend for fuck's sake.

"You never wanted to talk to me before, so why now?" He's determined to make her squirm until she leaves. He doesn't know why but messing with someone else makes him feel marginally better about his own messed up life.

And for the first time in his life, he hears something solid from her.

"Because, you are alone. Alex and Justin are off in their own screwed up little world. Your parents are falling apart and pretending they aren't. Believe me; I've been there and back. I could have used a friend when my world was falling apart. Also, smoking a cigarette and skipping classes do not automatically make you an adult. And I'm making amends for the past" Her tone is blunt and dry, and like the truth always does, it stings like a motherfucker. The last part is soft and hesitant though.

He's not giving up yet though. Sometimes, this smoking cancer stick feels like his only link to a world where happiness doesn't have a price. Also, why left her off so easy?

"And what do you know?"

"Do you ever feel that ache inside of you Max; it's kind of a soul scarring loneliness. A void so big, nothing ever seems to fill it. It consumes you while you desperately try to fight it, and when your family wont even pay attention to you— because god forbid for a moment they look at their kid who is suffering— this ache it intensifies until you bite your bleeding lips to stop from crying. Any of it sounds familiar?" Her voice sounds detached and distant and but he's not an idiot and he can hear the undercurrent of suffering in her voice. It rings as loud as a toll bell.

"Someday, walking off the edge of a building doesn't seem like a bad thing." He's causal when he says but until now, he's made five trips to the edge. Six feet deep would be a welcome respite from all this screwed up shit. He watches her with some amount of interest. He wants to know what she thinks.

"They don't. When I was fifteen, sometimes I'd find myself there. The need was almost desperate at times." Her voice is thoughtful and he heaves a small sigh of relief. Someone who finally understands. It had become something of a rarity.

"Why did you not tell Alex?" That's the one thing he never really understood. They were supposed to be best friends.

"Because sometimes lying to myself and the whole world made it seem like it wasn't true." Her voice breaks a bit and both of them don't voice the unspoken sentiment hanging between them. Alex would have never understood the gravity of it. She didn't understand what it was to be neglected. She always had the world at her feet. He on the other hand, he knows.

He knows so fucking well.

/

They fall into a routine. She comes in the afternoons and while he smokes and writes a bit—yeah, what do you know, reading and writing is what he does nowadays, while she sits opposite him and makes her next set of crazy clothes. Sometimes he looks up to find her red hair falling over her eyes as she concentrates on the sewing on buttons, and when a certain slant of light hits it, it illuminates her head, making it glow. It's one of the prettiest things he's ever seen.

Sometimes they talk of mundane things and sometimes soul wrenching confessions come tumbling out and then he chews on his cigarette harder while she slowly but certainly rips the hem on her dress. It's hard baring your soul but catharsis awaits and why not try?

And some days they don't talk at all. Those are the days they spend in silence, watching life pass by on the street and thanking god for small mercies and miracles.

/

"Do you talk to Alex?" she asks rather wistfully one day. He looks up from his Trig homework, surprised at the question. He thinks for a moment or two before answering.

"I try. I try to make it seem like its normal. And she pretends too. But it's like we both know we're bad actors playing in a bad movie." Alex never looks straight at him. Her gaze is on her feet and Justin can't even bring himself to come visit. He never thought the day would come when he'd be the one pitying his brother and sister. It's some kind of sad sack irony.

"We decided when we'd grow up; we'd open a clothing story together. Kind of like how Romy and Michelle did. I was convinced my cupcake headbands would be a hit and she tried to be convinced too." She's smiling as she's talking, memories pouring out as her fingers continually weave fabric with thread and he's fascinated by the movement of her hands.

"D you want that even now?" he asks gently because he's treading on a broken dream and an innocent memory and god knows he's had enough of those trampled upon.

"No. I just want something to look forward to. Something like hope so when there are days when I feel like the sun doesn't shine, I'll cling on to it as if it were my only lifejacket." Her reply is simple and poignant and unbidden, his hands reach out and cover her resting ones and warm them with hope.

Her fingers intertwine with his and she smiles back at him and for the first time in a few years, he feels like a kid again. A kid who just seen the wonder of spring and the flowers blooming.

God it feels fucking good to feel like a person who matters again.

/

There are some days when hopelessness floods through him like a river in spate. Those days he seeks her out and sometimes he places his head on her shoulder and thinks, with her next to him, he can carry on.

There are some days when he feels happiness course through him, exploding with the intensity of fireworks. Those days he seeks her out, just so that she can share in his joy and so that he can see her light brown eyes sparkle with laughter and her face wreathe with smiles. And sometimes, because he's so caught up in the moment, he hugs her and when she hugs him back like she never wants to let him go, he find something electric running through his veins. He decides, he likes this feeling.

There is one day, when she comes to him in tears because some days, she needs to be reminded that, she has _a_ reason to exist, he clasps her face between his hands and kisses her tears away. She breaks away and in a moment he knows everything has irrevocably changed but when he pulls her back into his arms and she smiles as if this were the happiest day in her life, a weight lifts off his shoulders and he smiles, so wide it hurts because he's so happy it hurts.

And then there's everyday, where they walk along the road hand in hand, a little bitter, a little wiser, a little sadder and a lot more happier, he knows he's found what he's been looking for all along.

The girl at the end of the rainbow.

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Yeah, I don't know what I was doing either. But I TRIED. And I believe that is the imperative word here. :)


End file.
